The Diablo 3 PvP levelling bug is finally being fixed

On the 22 April a pretty nasty bug surfaced in Diablo 3 that allowed players to gain experience from killing their own summoned pets in the PvP area the Scorched Chapel.

The video which demonstrated the bug showed players could level their character to Paragon level 100 in about four days by simply placing something weighty on their mouse button while they left the game running.

Blizzard has finally announced that a hotfix is coming to the game.

We’ve seen a lot of posts about this subject, so I just wanted to confirm that a hotfix is currently in the works to address a bug that’s causing player-summoned pets to grant experience when killed in the Scorched Chapel. We hope to implement the fix soon, and will provide an update to everyone once it’s live. (For clarity, hotfixes are updates we make on our end that don’t require you to download a new patch. Some hotfixes will go live the moment they are implemented, while others may require server restarts to take effect.)

In the meantime, since it’s not intended for pets summoned by players or items to grant experience, we encourage you to game responsibly and avoid exploiting this bug to gain an advantage. Not only can this potentially lead to your account being penalized (depending on the situation), but more importantly it’s not really fair to your fellow players. When exploited, bugs like this can negatively impact the enjoyment of others – which is why we’re working as quickly as we can to fix it, and why we’d appreciate your help in keeping the effects of the bug as minimal as possible until it’s resolved.

This issue was originally reported on our forums during 1.0.7 PTR testing; however, we unfortunately missed the reports before patch 1.0.7 was released, and as a result the bug went live. So, a big thank you not only to the players who reported the bug initially by posting, but also to those who helped bring it to our attention by contacting our Hacks team.

It’s been five days since the bug started to spread around the Intertubes which is a long time for something like this not be fixed, and when exactly did the majority of gamers “game responsibly”? If there is bug that will advance you in level for the minimum amount of work for a game that has been out for a year, you can bet quite a few players will have messed with this.

Blizzard will just have to be a bit more vigilant with bug reports in the future.